In a bid to identify habitual traffic offenders and making traffic fines transparent and easy, Ranchi traffic police started e-challan system at four traffic posts of the city on trial basis for a month from Wednesday.
Started at Rajendra Chowk, Birsa Chowk, Argora Chowk and Radium Chowk, the new system will be extended to all 40 traffic posts of Ranchi after a month after the efficiency of the initiative is determined during the trial period. Four traffic police personnel equipped with 3G-enabled tablet computers and Bluetooth printers have been stationed at each of these four posts.
“Under the e-challan system, a database of traffic offenders is being prepared with January 1, 2016 as the cut-off date. This information will be used for identifying habitual offenders and penalise them according to the provisions,” stated Superintendent of Police (Traffic) Manoj Ratan Chothe.
While issuing a traffic fine now, the traffic constables can ascertain the count and nature of traffic rules violated by a vehicle owner in past by accessing required information on a Delhi-based central server from their tablets. Situations where the vehicle is driven by someone other than the owner can also be factored in this system when issuing a fine.
The constables will have to feed in the vehicle registration number in application which will bring up the past record and details of the vehicle as entered in the District Transport Office records. On entering the provisions of Motor Vehicles Act the fine is in accordance to, the application will also calculate the amount to be paid as fine by considering whether the same offence has been committed by the driver before.
“This will bring transparency in the process of issuing traffic fines. When being fined, drivers will receive a printed receipt of the fine and an SMS with all the details. In case they do not receive any of these, the details can be looked up at our web portal e-challan.jhpolice.gov.in. Once e-challan system is put into effect, the offenders will receive the SMS only, making the process entirely paperless,” the Traffic SP said.
With this system, we will be able to know the fines collected by traffic police department by logging into the e-challan portal, he added.
For now, drivers will have to pay their fines on the spot, but they will have the option to pay them via a payment gateway of State Bank of India once the system is implemented across the city.